Daughter of Empire (18 page)

Friday, 15 August 1947 was one of the most incredible days in history. I have never experienced such an outpouring of excitement and joy. The noise of crowds cheering rang throughout India and
the expressions of respect and admiration for my parents from both the new government and the Indian people were remarkable.

For us, Independence Day began with my father being sworn in as Governor-General while the new Indian flag was hoisted over what was now Governor-General’s House. In the Durbar Hall, it
was pure theatre as the golden thrones with their sumptuous red velvet canopies were spotlit, reflecting the gold of the carpet, and bathing the room in a warm glow. My mother looked marvellous in
a long gold lamé dress with a little wreath of gold leaves on her head, and my father was resplendent in his white full dress naval uniform with the blue ribbon of the Garter and his other
decorations. The trumpeters in scarlet and gold heralded a splendid entrance, and as the doors were thrown open everyone sang ‘God Save the King’ followed by the new Indian national
anthem, ‘
Jana Gana Mana
’
.
Then my parents were driven off in the state landau to the Constituent Assembly. There were so many people surrounding the Council House,
however, cheering ‘
Jai Hind
’, that the state carriage was engulfed and Nehru and the other government leaders had to come out to calm the crowd and create a passage for my
parents to get to the hall.

Once inside, my father read out a message from the King and made his own speech, which resulted in prolonged and joyous cheering. Then the president of the Assembly, Rajendra Prasad, read out
messages of congratulations and good wishes from other countries and gave an address that concluded by paying tribute to my parents. Again, making their way outside was impossible, as the crowds
had pressed so tightly against the doors, and it took several minutes even to leave the chamber. Once out in the bright sunlight, we watched as the crowds clapped and shouted themselves hoarse with
cries of ‘
Pandit Mountbatten, ki jai!
’, ‘
Lady Mountbatten! Jai Hind!
’ as well as similar exclamations to all the Indian leaders. There were even some cries of
‘Mountbatten Miss Sahib!’ or ‘Miss Pamela’, or they just chanted ‘
Angrezi! Angrezi!
’ I hurried to get back into the car and went ahead of my
parents’ procession to Princess Park for the flag salutation ceremony.

A tsunami of people filled every possible bit of space as far as the eye could see. We climbed out of the car and attempted unsuccessfully to fight our way on foot towards a low platform
surrounding the flagstaff. My parents had said that this would be India’s day and you could see it on every single face; hear it in every voice. It struck me as odd that there were babies up
in the air, high above heads, until I realised that their parents simply had to thrust them up above the crowds to avoid them being crushed. The bicycle being passed above everyone’s heads
appeared surreal but the crowd took it good-naturedly – there just wasn’t a single inch of space in which to put it down.

We were about thirty yards away from the grandstand, feeling helpless, until Panditji made his way over to us, walking on people’s laps and having to steady himself by grabbing the nearest
shoulder. ‘Come on, Pammy,’ he yelled above the din. He reached out for me to grab his hand. ‘But I can’t walk over people,’ I shouted feebly. ‘Of course you
can! Nobody will mind. Come on!’ He waved his hands. I looked at Panditji’s feet – he was wearing flat leather sandals. I was wearing high-heeled shoes. ‘Take your shoes
off!’ he shouted. Then he pulled me up and over hundreds of human laps while everyone laughed and cheered us on. When we reached the flagstaff, he told me and Maniben Patel,
Vallabhbhai’s diminutive daughter, to stand with our backs to the pole so that we would not be knocked over in all the excitement, and from this spot we had the perfect view of the exuberant
chaos.

The state carriage finally crept into view, but neither it nor the bodyguard escort could come any closer without running people over. Eventually, my father stood up in the landau and saluted
the flag. Panditji struggled over to them but this time it proved impossible to clear a passage for them. In his attempt to help, Panditji came so close to being crushed that my father hauled him
on to the carriage hood, much to the delight of the crowd. He then rescued several women and children from being crushed by the horses’ hooves until, in addition to the uniformed attendant
standing on the back, there were ten more people in the carriage along with my parents, with the new prime minister riding triumphantly on top.

That night we gave a dinner party for over one hundred people, and after dessert we all wandered out into the blissful cool of the night to watch the illuminations and fireworks from the
magically lit Mughal Gardens. This was followed by a reception for two and a half thousand people – each one of whom was presented to my parents. The atmosphere was intoxicating, but
eventually I had to go to bed, exhausted but exhilarated. The next day my mother and I went to see the prime minister raise the new Dominion flag over the Red Fort in Old Delhi. In the midst of
this dramatic setting, and with the sound of 800,000 people cheering and singing, my father spoke. India, he said, should be allowed to have the ‘joy of Independence Day’ before it
faced the misery of partition. They were prescient words. But for now, the joy lingered. My father’s plan had been fulfilled. India was now an independent country. It was extraordinary to
think that I had witnessed the birth of two new nations and been present while history was in the making.

11

A
fter all the ceremonies and parties we next flew to Bombay. This was my chance to meet the student leaders who, following independence, had been
released from prison. They had previously been involved in protests, agitating for the end of British rule in India. I sat in my sitting room in Government House, waiting for my guests, tea at the
ready. I was impressed that their leader, Dinkar Sakrikar, whose name had been given to me by Miss Lankaster, had accepted my invitation, and I wondered whether, if I had been imprisoned for my
beliefs, I should have been willing to go to a meeting at the official residence of the government that had imprisoned me. I had a long time to think, and worry, about this because twenty minutes
after our appointed time, there was still no sign of my guests. I called the ADC Room only to discover, to my absolute horror, that the police sentries had detained the students. These police
happened to be the very same men who had arrested the students before they were sent to prison, however, and both groups had whiled away the time reminiscing, until the ADCs rang through and
approved their entry.

Although I was better acclimatised and much more knowledgeable about Indian politics than I had been when my father first brokered the idea of me interacting with the students, I was
nevertheless nervous that I might be faced with a disgruntled, confrontational group of former dissidents, and now it was about to happen, I was even more concerned. But I need not have worried one
bit for I was met with smiling faces and much laughter about what had happened, and we talked easily over tea. Early the next morning we set off to see the institutions where they studied –
the G. S. Medical College, Bombay University, and the J. J. School of Art. They drove me in a car flying the new Indian flag and introduced me to many of their friends. We rushed around excitedly,
and it was fascinating, but there was not really time to talk as I had to be back at Government House to fly off with my parents at noon. I arrived back dripping with bouquets, garlands and
presents, overcome by my welcome and their friendliness.

Back in Delhi, it wasn’t long before news came in that the now divided Punjab was in total crisis. My mother set off at once with Rajkumari Amrit Kaur – Gandhiji’s personal
secretary had now become the new Minister for Health – to survey the region for herself. They found horrific scenes and mass hysteria, ‘the place of the dead’, as Muriel Watson,
her personal assistant, described it to Panditji and my father on their return. But of course it didn’t end there. In the coming weeks my mother flew from one region to another, witnessing
the atrocities at first hand. There were times when the reports were so terrible that I feared for her safety and even her life.

Millions of refugees were moving in opposite directions using the same roads. When a Hindu or Sikh had had his village burned and his family massacred by Muslims, or vice versa, they would be
overcome by blind rage when they saw people they now considered to be their mortal enemies on the opposite side of the road. They would attack, then their inflamed co-religionists would join in, so
fighting would break out among those who had previously been fleeing to safety. It was heartbreaking to think that for many years these people had lived peacefully as neighbours.

Not afraid of facing the crisis head-on, my mother kept Panditji and Rajkumari informed of the terrible situation in the ever-expanding refugee camps. At one Muslim camp, she and her team
intervened when they found a gang of Hindus and Sikhs trying to set fire to it and burn the inmates to death. The ADCs who travelled with her were amazed at her bravery and often found that she
took them into situations that even they, as serving officers, were alarmed by. One of her major concerns was the abduction of Hindu and Sikh women in Bengal. There were hundreds of cases of women
being raped and forced to become Muslim. My mother’s office went into overdrive, helped by the presence of the feisty, angry Punjabi refugee, Jaya Dalip Singh, the niece of Rajkumari.

Jaya was very bitter when she arrived, having come to Delhi with her wealthy family after they and their entire community lost their homes in Lucknow. Jaya, who was twenty-one, was initially in
shock, her life having collapsed overnight. On arrival in Delhi she had turned her back on her family, spending her evenings in nightclubs, living what she termed ‘a fast and loose
life’. In despair, her parents appealed to Rajkumari for help. ‘Send her to my friend Lady Mountbatten,’ Rajkumari told them. ‘She needs someone who can speak Punjabi when
she visits the refugee camps. She will sort Jaya out.’ Jaya’s fate was sealed.

I liked Jaya, her energy and her plight touched me, and here, at last, was someone nearer my own age. She certainly needed someone to offload her frustrations on to and I was a willing listener.
She had witnessed atrocities first hand and now possessed a wisdom that came from direct experience; while I was acutely aware of the problems that fuelled the country’s burgeoning crisis, I
had been sheltered from the worst of it and would be unlikely ever to suffer in the way she had. Jaya was proud to be from the Punjab, having always considered herself Punjabi before Indian, and
she was furious with my father because in all the discussions about independence, the countless meetings of committees and councils, no Punjabi representative had been in attendance, and therefore
their land and their lives had been forfeited. ‘Congress believes that I should be happy that the Punjab has been sacrificed for the “freedom of India”,’ an impassioned Jaya
told me. ‘Well, I am not!’

Jaya came to soften her views over time, and while I felt she condemned my father unjustly, I sat through her fiery monologues, listening quietly, and was rather relieved when, after a while,
she came to adore not only my mother but my father as well.

It did appear that, since independence, the country was intent on self-destruction. Throughout India people were turning on their neighbours, and stories of massacre and murder were never far
from anyone’s lips. While we were in Simla our treasurer’s son was killed as he returned from college in Delhi. His parents couldn’t be dissuaded from leaving immediately to try
to recover his body, and they were murdered on the train down to Delhi. It was difficult to make sense of any of this destruction of life. Still in Simla, we gave a farewell dinner for Lord
Ismay’s daughter Sarah and her soon-to-be-fiancé Wenty Beaumont, our ADC. They were on a train to Delhi the next day when a mob of Hindus stopped the train and killed all 150 Muslims
on board, with the exception of Wenty’s bearer, whom Sarah had bravely hidden beneath her seat, cloaked by her skirt. When the mob burst in, Sarah swore that they were alone in the
carriage.